I was recently watching a DVD of some Tri-Nations rugby. These are games between South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Checking my globe, it looks like the great circle route between Johannesburg and Auckland would go across Antarctica. So would a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Sydney. I checked a few airlines (Air NZ, SA) but did not see any flights that would go over.
Are there any airline flights that go across Antarctica?
If I wanted to charter a flight for the Springboks to fly to play the All Blacks, would we fly over Antarctica then?
You should be able to fly across Antarctica all you want in your own plane. There are airports (mainly icy strips) there. It isn’t much of a problem for the planes because there encounter those types of temperatures every day when they fly at high altitudes. Runway size may limit the size of plane that lands there however. I know that military planes life C-130’s go to Antarctica but there are also capable of using unimproved airstrips. I am not sure how you could rent a military plane but there is probably some plane that would be suitable for you.
However, commerical airliners have some additional rules. The killer would be maximum time aloft to an emergency airport. I can’t see something like a 747 having enough room to land anywhere near that general area. The North Pole is much less of a problem in that regard because there are plenty of land masses south of it.
I suspect few of those strips welcome transient aircraft, and that services such as hangaring, fuel, food and lodging would be decidedly scarce and dear.
It’s not uncommon for scheduled flights between Australia and South America to go over Antarctica, but I don’t know how many do (I know Aerolineas Argentinas used to fly via the South Pacific instead).
When we were all panicking about the Y2K “bug”, I remember a TV reporter interviewing folks boarding a Qantas flight, and asking them if they were nervous - as the clocks ticked over to January 1, 2000, they were going to be above Antarctica.
After a long absence following the Mt Erebus disaster linked to upthread, there are scenic joyflights over Antarctica again - I’m pretty sure Qantas runs them from time to time.
Flying across antarctic airspace isn’t as routine as you might think, due to the harsh environment and great distances from any civilization, and landing there takes very special planning. For one thing special heaters are required for aircraft engines. When shut down they must maintain a minimum temp. to be restarted. Here’s a brief article about a Brit. outfit that flys support for scienticic missions: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/living_and_working/aircraft_and_vehicles/aircraft/index.php
I know nothing about it but I would be amazed if commercial airliners flew directly over Antarctica on scheduled routes. I could understand if they clipped the side of the continent for a bit, but over the pole? Wow.
As we all know, Antarctica’s weather and temperature patterns are literally the worst on the planet and there are millions of square miles of vast, frozen nothingness. if something goes wrong when you are zipping along at 88 degrees S, well, then you are in deep shit, right now. Or so I would assume.
As Xema pointed out, there’s a reason why Air New Zealand don’t do Scenic Flights over Antarctica, and it’s because one of their aircraft got caught up in a white-out and ploughed into the side of Mt. Erebus in 1979. Even with modern aircraft and advances in directionfinding/GPS equipment, the reality is that Flying Over Antarctica For Sightseeing is commercially a bit iffy- not that many people would want to go, and the insurance premiums would be astronomical, for a start.
Alas Ushuaia, whilst it can take 747s is only used for flights back to Bs As and local short stop flights.
I have been looking into this as I plan a trip to see some relatives next year in Perth, it seams the only flights to Australia are to Sydney from Buenos Aires or Santiago de Chile. It would appear these all go via Auckland.
Based on the info upthread that the route to Auckland goes across the south pacific I take back what I said upthread regarding flights from here to there going over Antartica.